It’s a club that feels like it’s been built – to the exact specifications of the best coach in the world, then outfitted with the best of everything money can buy – rather than grown. At some point that would always show. At some point, establishing yourself as the dominant force of the Champions League is less of a sporting challenge and more of an economic formula.
However, that should not obscure the style with which City knocked Real Madrid aside. Guardiola, in the days leading up to the match, had discovered in his players the three ingredients he believed would be necessary to secure a place in the final against Inter Milan in Istanbul on June 10.
There was a sense of “calm,” he said, a lack of panic and fear. There was also ‘tension’, the edge, the alertness needed to perform. And, crucially, there was the “pain” of what happened last year, when City fell victim to that peculiar magic of Real Madrid, and only Real Madrid. For a year, Guardiola said, his team had been forced to “swallow the poison of that game”. This was the chance to clear it.
Particularly in the first half of Wednesday, it felt like this could be remembered as the pinnacle of Guardiola’s project in Manchester, the pinnacle of the team he has built, honed, polished and perfected over the past six years.
At half-time, City were 2-0 up thanks to two goals from Bernardo Silva, and would have had every reason to be more than a little disappointed. Erling Haaland had missed two glorious opportunities. Kevin De Bruyne had a shot over the face of the goal.